154 Heredity and Eugenics 



(Castle's, Davenport's) not to have taken place. As for 

 Guthrie's experiments with poultry, it seems as if Daven- 

 port's adequately controlled and carefully repeated experi- 

 ments gave results which show very clearly that Guthrie's 

 cases are due to regenerated germ glands and impure stocks, 

 and not to foster-soma influence. The second possibility, 

 however, is a far different one and would show only varia- 

 tions of gametic constitution of the alien germs and not intro- 

 duced characters. In other words, there is this fundamental 

 difference between the two possibilities: the foster soma 

 may act merely as a new environmental complex providing 

 new physical and chemical states which may modify the 

 physiological activities of the ingrafted germ cells; and this 

 is very different from the conception of the foster soma 

 as formulating "a something" bearer of its characters or 

 character, which "something" it transmits to the germ, 

 which "something" then reproduces in development the 

 replica of the somatic part or character from which it 

 came. 



Neo-Lamarckians reply to the results obtained from 

 these grafting experiments by the statement that the trans- 

 planting of ovaries is highly abnormal and would not occur in 

 nature, and would not be repeated in sequences long enough 

 to get the kinetic effect necessary to induce germinal change, 

 and therefore the experiments in no wise satisfy the require- 

 ments of their hypothesis. 



The idea of repeated impacts producing an accumulated 

 kinetic effect only after long periods of activity finds most 

 complete expression in the curious theories of Rignano, 1 

 which, however, are only another logical subterfuge to 



1 E. Rignano, Sur la transmissibilite des caracteres aquis. Paris, 1906. Also 

 transl., Open Court Pub. Co., 191 1. 



